Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

I was trying to take a picture of the chocolate Easter egg Creighton gave me. I'd put it on a plate on the floor, and intended to crop out everything but the egg, but Batman was on it like the wiley little snake that he is, so the entire picture is much funnier LOL.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

It's been another whirlwind couple of weeks. We had a booth at the ACSM national surveying conference that was held here in Spokane, so had a number of business and friend guests visiting, which meant that we actually had to Clean the House (GASP!). I'm never, or at least hardly ever, going to complain about stamp show hours again. This one went from 9am - 7:30pm for three days. One of the guests was Dave Huff, a surveying friend from Mississippi. We couldn't let him leave without a visit to the snow, so we hauled him and the dogs up to the local state park one not-so-balmy afternoon. Besides the cold emp, it was very windy, so I basically booted them out for the Kodak moment, and then everybody rushed back to the car.Batman and Cosmos thought it was mighty fine, but you can see how danged happy Creighton and Dave were....NOT! LOLThen I was off to Portland for an Heirloom stamp show. Portland is always a special weekend -- lots of shopping at yarn stores, of course the mandatory stop at Powell's bookstore, and our favorite fat-filled, sodium-encrusted Guilty Pleasure, salt and pepper chicken. We get it at a quasi-oriental restaurant that Mary Kay and I discovered one year when we seriously budgetted the motel, and stayed at the ThriftyLodge on Burnside. Can't recommend the motel, but this restaurant is next door, and we've been going back every year since. The seats are all cracked green vinyl, with duct tape repairs and tufts of stuffing coming out, and I've never seen anyone else eating there -- big attraction is the bar -- but, man, can they fry up a good batch of chicken pieces. I'll be posting some of my yarn treasures soon.

Monday, March 3, 2008

In Memory of Ralphie1991-2008When Dakota was about two years old, I was tasked to take care of a neighbor's cat for a couple of weeks while they were on holiday, so twice I day, Dakota and I would check on their cat -- feed, water, etc. The cat's name was Ralphie. Ralphie was a Siamese cat, and not especially friendly, bur Dakota was quite taken with her. When the neighbors returned, Dakota didn't understand why he wasn't seeing Ralphie everyday. Every cat he saw would set off cries for the "Ralphie", so I knew that a cat was in our future. A kitten wasn't suitable for a small boy, so I started looking around for an adult cat...and that's when our Ralphie entered our world. She was a special cat, really more like a dog. She loved to be around people, and she had the patience to let a small boy haul her around all day.Ralphie left us last week, and made her way over the Rainbow Bridge. She is missed by all that knew her. I hope that she is happily chasing butterflies through a field of daisies, where the sun always shines and the food dish is never empty.